China fashion week is always a festival of creativity where they’ve introduced such things as the rhinestone gas mask which comes in handy for China’s pollution problem. They’re apparently trying to make up for the Mao jacket & the fashion-conscious appreciate that even though it’s irredeemable.

The thing about this creation is it’s unisex character. One wonders why they make such a stink about the niqab when this is considered haute couture. The Mickey Mouse ears remain a mystery. Better not to ask.

(Photo by Chen Jianli/Xinhua)

Does it sound conspiratorial to question that suicide bombing yesterday in Kabul, Afghanistan in the vicinity of growing protests against the murder of Farkhunda? We’ll of course never know.

Six people were killed & 30 injured but the US has never flinched from human carnage before. It’s what special operatives do best.

It’s often impossible to wrap your mind around Israeli barbarism against Palestinians & the perfidy of those who defend it. As Israeli bombers hammered Gaza for 51 days last summer, taking out schools, hospitals, entire residential areas, the rabid Zionist Eely Weasel (known by his stage name as Elie Wiesel) took out full-page ads denouncing Palestinians for using their children as human shields; the US Pentagon was supplying millions more in military equipment to Israel; & UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was running around like a chicken with his head cut off to cover for Israeli human rights & war crimes.

Those who ridicule internet activism don’t understand the role activists & supporters of Palestine played on social media by circulating to millions the images of ethnic cleansing coming out of Gaza, in particular the horrific crimes against children. Were it not for that massive exposure, Israel would still be crooning “The Exodus Song” instead of making strident protests against BDS. We should not underestimate how much that social media campaign & the international protests of over a million people changed things.

One of the most significant changes is that several organizations including several Palestinian human rights groups, Save the Children, War Child, B’Tselem (an Israeli human rights group), & UNICEF were pressing to include the Israeli military on a list of grave violators of children’s human rights alongside the Islamic State (ISIL), Boko Haram, & the Taliban. Who could have imagined such a development just six years ago after Israel’s 23-day bombardment of Gaza which they named Operation Cast Lead or the eight-day bombardment in 2012 called Operation Pillar of Defense?

Putting aside the fallacies of such a list & the major omissions which should certainly include the US, NATO, Indian, & other armies, this move to identify Israel with the Islamic State is an astonishing political development that must have the Israeli government reeling–along with its Zionist apologists like Weasel. It should give pause to UN officials who are being disgraced & exposed before the world for running interference for Israeli ethnic cleansing instead of applying sanctions. It may in part explain the phony psychodrama being played out between Obama & Netanpsycho–as an attempt to take distance in rhetoric if not in military aid from egregious Israeli war crimes.

It would be such a catastrophic political setback for Israel that their officials bullied UNICEF officials into backing down. For now Israel will not be ranked as a psychotic state but the damage is done. According to a UN source, the human & children’s rights groups involved “are in uproar” over UN officials backing down & continue to press for Israel to be ranked with ISIL. The affinities between Israel & ISIL are apparent to all so we should be frank: it’s not that Eely Weasel & other Zionists don’t see that but that their racism & supremacy is so rancid they don’t give a damn & can’t acknowledge the humanity of Palestinians.

This is Netream Netzleam holding the body of her one-year-old baby girl named Razel who was killed by Israeli bombers last July. The photojournalist Heidi Levine took it at Razel’s funeral. The media caption to the photo said “medics said she died from injuries sustained in an Israeli air strike.” They can drop the equivocations now & just say outright that Razel is another Palestinian child targeted by Israel’s psycho military.

Build the economic & cultural boycott of Israel & demand no aid of any kind to Israel.

(Photo by Heidi Levine/SIPA/Rex)

This is 17-year-old Rawya abu Jom’a at the Shifa hospital in Gaza City during Israel’s Operation Ethnic Cleansing last summer. She suffered severe shrapnel injury when Israel bombed her family’s apartment. Three of her cousins & her sister were killed in the strike.

The photo is also by conflict photojournalist Heidi Levine who was just awarded for her photos of Gaza by the International Women’s Media Foundation. Another photo in the album was the funeral of three young boys killed near their home & was captioned “allegedly by an Israeli drone strike.” Are they sure it wasn’t by an evil fairy from outer space!? What despicable equivocation when it comes to Israeli war crimes!

This photo should also be submitted to the UN to document Israeli war crimes in Gaza. If nothing else, it will shame them for collusion. Or is shame not in their repertoire of emotions?

Build the hell out of the economic & cultural boycott of Israel (barcode beginning 729).

(Photo by Heidi Levine/SIPA/Rex)

Heidi Levine, an American photojournalist who became a settler to Israel in 1983, was just given an award by the International Women’s Media Foundation for her work in Gaza during Israel’s Operation Ethnic Cleansing last summer. She has been a combat photographer for a long time in both the West Bank & Israel & has also worked on assignments in Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Kosovo, & Afghanistan. This photo from Gaza City shows she was often in the midst of Israeli bombing. These men with the white flag are in the Shejaia residential neighborhood which Israeli bombing reduced to mountains of cement rubble & made thousands homeless.

This photo needs to be submitted to the UN as documentation of several Israeli war crimes in Gaza because under umpteen international laws “The right of belligerents is not unlimited.” Some of the most obvious violations seen here include attacking those who are unarmed or who have surrendered; bombing “to cause superfluous injury”; bombing towns, residences, or buildings which are not militarily defended; & bombing without warning authorities. Otherwise, it looks very much like genocide.

The UN of course won’t do squat with the evidence since they collude with Israel but that’s no reason not to “hold their feet to the fire.” Since the UN can’t be relied on for justice, there’s only one recourse & that is to build the economic & cultural boycott of Israel.

(Photo by Heidi Levine/SIPA/Rex)

The writer Toni Morrison has just sent out a fund appeal for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an authoritative civil rights law firm whose strategy is to crush hate groups with lawsuits. They also monitor racist incidents in the US, have school classroom programs, & issue a list of hate groups.

Hammering the courts with lawsuits is also a strategy used by anti-abortion groups in the US. Some have criticized SPLC for undermining the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights by going after groups who express reactionary views & labeling them as hate groups. But there’s another problem with SPLC which highlights the dilemma of liberal Zionism. In their Fall 2007 SPLC Intelligence Report they identified anti-Zionism with antisemitism & have ignored requests to clarify their views & repudiate such an odious imputation. What gives SPLC the authority to define who is a hate group if they cannot distinguish objections to the political ideology & practices of Zionism from social hatred of Jews? Does that mean they will eventually place BDS groups on their hate list?

Of much greater concern is SPLC’s relationship to Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, an Israeli attorney, & Shurat HaDin, the law center she founded in 2003 which models its strategy on the SPLC strategy of bankrupting who they define as hate groups. Shurat HaDin does not just model SPLC but according to Darshan-Leitner in an interview, she was schooled personally by the SPLC in Alabama.

Shurat HaDin models more than strategy by portraying itself as a civil rights group but in fact, according to a leaked Wikileaks cable, it has tight associations with Mossad & Israel’s National Security Council. Shurat HaDin’s function is to engage in “lawfare” bringing suits on behalf of victims of alleged terrorism against Palestinian groups, political leaders, & who they consider their financial patrons.
This strategy is going to become an important impediment for BDS groups & Palestinian solidarity, which is what it’s intended to do since there is little chance most of the law suits will reap much in actual damages. The intention is to discredit Palestinians as terrorists for defending themselves against ethnic cleansing, to tie up the resources of Palestinian groups, & to vilify Palestinian supporters as advocates of terrorism & as antisemites. They have already (in Australia) begun going after BDS groups & it’s only a matter of time before they start trying to tie up the resources & vilify other BDS groups.

Rather than give money to the SPLC which does not repudiate their role in creating this monster, it’s far better to build the hell out of the economic & cultural boycott of Israel & continue to demand “no aid of any kind to Israeli apartheid & ethnic cleansing!”

It appears the entire shabby edifice of US-NATO war propaganda against Afghanistan is crumbling after the brutal murder of Farkhunda. Media accounts of what exactly happened are still mangled but what is emerging is growing public outrage at the police for standing by while she was beaten to death & not doing one damn thing to stop it. Thirteen cops have already been suspended & face questioning for their role. And the collusion goes all the way to the top: the government had to fire the spokesman for the police in Kabul after he endorsed her murder on Facebook. Such a brazen, public act by a police official speaks volumes about what the government thought it could get away with.

Hundreds of protesters, men & women, marched in Kabul demanding the government fire & prosecute all the cops & officials involved along with the 19 perpetrators already arrested. It appears the murder has ignited fury over a whole range of war issues facing Afghans. The head of a leading women’s group among the protesters said “We are getting fed up. The new generation has known nothing but war, they are not educated, & now they have no jobs.”

Despite war propaganda, this is not a lineup of perpetrators but protesters demanding justice for Farkhunda. Our fullest solidarity with them & deepest respect since standing up against the Afghan government is standing up against the repressions of US occupation. And that’s a pretty scary thing when the US operates one of their torture prisons in Afghanistan.

(Photo by Massoud Hossain/AP)

Homeless in Dhaka, Bangladesh: Bangladesh is referred to as one of the “developing countries.” That’s another verbal obfuscation meant to suggest that if the country just keeps chugging along someday it too will achieve the capitalist dream. Forbes magazine, the voice of US capitalism, thinks Bangladesh is doing quite nicely in its economic growth & boasted that in terms of public opinion, Bangladesh is a “capitalist haven” & the most pro-capitalist country in South Asia according to a Pew poll. Over 90% of the Bangladeshi billionaires & millionaires they interviewed agreed that plunder & exploitation of working people couldn’t be better.

One wonders if this little homeless girl was polled–or any of the estimated 250,000 to four million homeless children? What about the garment workers in sweatshops who protest for safe work conditions & decent wages? Or those who’ve lost beloved family members in factory fires & collapses? What about the over 46% of people who live under US $1.25 a day (in 2010)?

This small vulnerable child must be terrified to live on the street, subject to abuse, starvation, exploitations & violence of every kind. She is sleeping on a garbage bag on the bank of Dhaka’s main river, the Buriganga. Because the government does not enforce environmental laws for tanneries (leather is a major export industry), they dump an estimated 75 metric tons daily of solid waste (containing animal flesh, dissolved hair, fats) & liquid waste (dyes, chemicals, pesticides, lime, formaldehyde, bleach, heavy metals, sulfuric acid, lead) into the Buriganga. Since there are also no protective laws for workers, tannery workers suffer many health conditions–particularly skin & respiratory ailments & disfigured or amputated limbs. They endure discolored, itchy, peeling, acid-burned, & rash-covered skin; fingers corroded to stumps; aches, dizziness, nausea. This child, forced to sleep on the bank of the river, will suffer the same ailments without any health care.

Bangladesh claims its foreign policy is guided by the principle of “friendship towards all & malice towards none.” So poetic & so full of baloney! It’s a key ally of the US in South Asia & conducts annual joint military exercises with the US Pentagon. You can’t have it both ways, even if talking hippy makes militarism sound cool. A bloated military budget would certainly explain why they can’t address child homelessness. So would the growing number of billionaires & millionaires which seem to multiply like locusts as poverty increases.

The US, UK, & European Union are important “trading partners” for Bangladesh–that is, if you consider extracting wealth off the backs of working people & children a partnership rather than plunder.
The wretched spectacle of millions of homeless children is only hopeless if we don’t get off our leaden asses to oppose US & European predation in the “developing countries” & militarism wherever it rears its ugly ass.

(Photo by A.M. Ahad/AP)

You cannot tell me Ted Cruz doesn’t look like Count Dracula. Same pointy nose, same ugly smirk, & same politics too. We need an exorcist down here. Bring a truck of garlic & a crucifix.

(Photo of Cruz by Jeff Malet)

The US Supreme Court heard arguments today in a dispute about allowing specialty Texas license plates to have a logo of the Confederate flag. The Sons of Confederate Veterans who are litigants claim it’s a free speech issue versus censorship after the state rejected their request.

They can take any pulpit they like to spew their social hatred but they should not be allowed to make the state or public party to their hatred or pollute the roads & highways with their malignancy.